Before you arrived, we painted your room the colour of early morning—not quite blue, not quite grey, the soft shade the sky makes before the day has decided what to be. We stood in that room imagining you there. Your small clothes in the drawer. Your breathing in the dark. The ordinary sounds of you becoming part of our home. There is so much we want to show you. The sea, when it stretches farther than you can understand, and the cold surprise of snow melting on your mitten. We want you to know the smell of fresh bread filling the kitchen, and how the crust crackles when it’s still warm. We won’t always know what we’re doing. We’ll be tired, and sometimes wrong. But we will listen. We will learn you, slowly and carefully, for as long as you’ll let us. You are here now, and the whole house feels different. Ada.